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Around half the £195m (€233m; $306m) legal costs that the NHS in England paid out in 2010-11 for claimants who won clinical negligence cases went on “no win, no fee” lawyers’ success fees and refunds of premiums paid by claimants to insure against the cost of losing, calculations by the Ministry of Justice indicate.

The figures are based on a sample of cases that found that success fees accounted for 34% of claimants’ legal costs paid by the NHS and so called “after the event” insurance premiums for 17%.

If the figures for the sample are representative of cases in general—which …